Robots in drunken brawls
This week, Canada’s robotic social experiment, hitchBOT met an untimely end in Philadelphia after being damaged beyond repair in a reported drunken fight – no we’re not making this up. The child-sized robot, with a whopping 65,000 Twitter followers, was hitchhiking its way across the United States when it was destroyed by a drunk bar-goer. hitchBOT had previously completed journeys across its home country in addition to Germany and the Netherlands, relying on the kindness of others.
One brave airline did something a bit different last week when it gave some of its younger passengers the chance to answer customers’ Twitter queries… through drawings. Air France used this creative, customer service campaign to promote its partnership with the upcoming film release of "The Little Prince".
And finally, a completely different type of travel is creating a ‘Buzz’ on social media this week. Buzz Aldrin got in the #TBT (throwback Thursday) spirit and shared a photo of his travel voucher and customs form from the Apollo 11 mission, to his Twitter account. With travel expenses of $33.31 and cargo consisting of ‘moon rock’ and ‘moon dust’ samples what’s not to love about these relics?
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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